What is the number one motivator that drives a modern western materialistic culture to acquire wealth? It’s greed. Remember the movie “Wall Street” where Gordon Gekko played by Michael Douglas said, “Greed is good”?
This is the culture we live in. It’s the culture our children are growing up in. And valuing greed is both wrong and dangerous. It’s morally contrary to God’s financial laws and it’s dangerous to individuals and societies. According to the Bible, wealth is good; not greed, but like all things God has created, human beings have found ways to corrupt God’s blessings.
As mentioned earlier, we are to honor God and recognize him as the one who gives wealth. Honoring God with our wealth is a practical matter. It’s seen in tangible ways, especially in how we handle money. Financial resources are provided by God for God’s purposes. This means that there are redemptive purposes for your money. Four principles can be derived from Scripture as to the purpose of money, which in turn, direct us to use our financial resources for God’s glory and honor.
Four fundamental purposes for wealth
Most basically, money is for human sustenance. God supplies the basic things we need to survive (Pr 3:9-10, 2 Cor 9:8-11). In ancient cultures, God’s resources were directly tied to agricultural successes. Today God’s resources are commonly transferred through legal tender (money). However, wealth isn’t an end in itself. It’s a means by which God provides for basic human needs. It’s to be used for God’s purposes and God’s purposes begin at home.
Paul taught Timothy that anyone who doesn’t provide for his family is living contrary to faith in Christ (1 Tim 5:8). I have had conversations with a number of homeless men at a charity soup kitchen. Many are grateful for Christian charity, but some chose to live on the street because they don’t want to take on responsibilities—for themselves or for anyone else including their immediate families. Those who are willing to develop the social skill of responsibility leave the streets, take on a job, and become a resourceful person capable of caring for others. Those who chose to live irresponsibly visit charity after charity trying to escape the purposes of God.
Money is also to be used for furthering the Kingdom of God. God provides resources beyond what we need to fund gospel ministry. This includes both the proclamation of truth and carrying for others with physical needs. Christians tithe to support ministry in Christ’s name. Many of the churches Paul established included individuals who gave to support his gospel ministry. They also sent aid to the needy Jerusalem body of believers (Ac 6:1-7, 1 Cor 16:3, 2 Cor 8:1-4,7). Jesus extended the concept of giving to include anyone in serious need such as those who are hungry or thirsty or a stranger needing housing or in need of clothing or sick or abandoned in prison (Pr 11:25, Mt 25:35, 40).
Money is to be used to further develop financial resources and to cover the expenses of resting from labor. There will be lean financial years. Anyone who owns stocks knows the stock market has cycles of growth, decline, and correction. Passive income and savings are necessary to sustain lifestyle levels when resources are scarce. A wise person doesn’t simply work for money. He or she sees money not as a source for spending, but as something to manage. The wealthy learn to make money work for them.
Wealth is accumulated in order to generate greater amounts of wealth. This passive income can be given to positively change the course of ministries and other charitable causes. And we must not forget the work-rest pattern established in the Genesis account of creation. To rest we must save enough to pay for times of spiritual and physical restoration (vacations, holidays, sabbaticals). Our hearts, minds, and bodies need downtime to heal and rejuvenate. A well-rested person becomes a productive person. This can’t happen without some planning and saving of capital.
Money is not to be used to support an extravagant lifestyle. Earlier we asked the question, how much wealth can a person manage? The answer was surprising. How much wealth a person can steward is based on the degree to which they are humble. How humble they are will determine the amount of wealth God can entrust to them. This implies that we are not to squander resources on unnecessary things or to live lavish lifestyles full of pleasures. Life means more than being comfortable.
Modern culture has taken the rich and the young on a ride into a never-ending spending pattern, searching for exotic and extreme experiences. I enjoy traveling and seeing new things. Like having wealth, enjoying life isn’t wrong. But today we live in a world where experiencing extreme activities is becoming the norm. Our hedonistic culture is pushing the development of wealth out the door and leaving people constantly spending, consuming, and searching for the next rush of pleasure. Rather than living to work, our children are growing up in a world that values pleasure over being industrious. The pattern of rest and work is designed to keep us effective, but living to be pampered or thinking every adventure must be outrageous is to value extravagance. It’s squandering valuable resources, and eventually, it leads to a heart that loves pleasure more than God (Pr 21:17, 2 Tim 3:4). Rather than entertaining ourselves, we are to use our wealth to honor God in four specific ways.
4 ways to honor God through spending wealth
1) Give generously
“A generous man will prosper; he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed” (Pr 11:25 NIV). “A generous man will himself be blessed, for he shares his food with the poor” (Pr 22:9 NIV). The irony of the divine financial principle of generosity is that the one who gives generously is generously supplied by God. People who value giving God pleasure don’t value entertainment as all that 
important. Rather, they are refreshed by refreshing others.
Paul clearly understood this principle when he wrote to the Corinthian Church. “Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God” (2 Cor 9:10-11 NIV).
These passages don’t teach a health-wealth connection. Giving generously is a principle; not a law. God is not obligated to multiply your wealth just because you give some money to a charitable cause. Generosity is to be a characteristic of all believers and not abused or perverted into thinking if we give then God must give back to us and multiply our giving for our own sakes. There are many generous believers throughout the world who live in poverty. Even believers in less developed nations than the United States can and do out give Americans in the same manner that the poor widow who placed two coins in the offering plate out gave the wealthy (Mk 12:42-44). True generosity is giving without placing demands on God to return wealth back to us. We are to give in Jesus’ name not expecting any financial return for our generosity.
2) Give voluntarily
To love God is to love him voluntarily. All other religions teach that followers are obligated to love God if they wish for the divine to accept them. Christianity teaches that love comes freely from 
the heart when the mind realizes that God already loves them (1 Jn 4:19). This is also true of giving resources to further God’s kingdom and relieve human suffering. To love God is to voluntarily choose to obey and serve him. To voluntarily use your wealth for God’s purposes is to turn your assets into love offerings to God who gave it to you in the first place.
Christian giving is a free will exercise of your faith, love, and devotion to God. “If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?” (1 John 3:17 NIV). John cannot imagine a person who has genuinely experienced God’s love and yet possess no pity for other believers in need. Remembering that God freely gave redemption to us who are in need is the motivation to freely give to those in need. Cornelius, a Roman centurion, was devoted to God. His devotion included freely and generously giving to the poor. Jesus recognized his giving as giving to God and recognized his faith, love, and devotion to God. The Lord sent Peter to him to clearly explain who the centurion was serving with his financial resources, so, after hearing the gospel, his salvation would be complete (Ac 10:1-5).
3) Give sacrificially
Sincere giving includes sacrifice. When the ancient Jews offered up a sacrifice it was truly a costly act. When they gave of their produce, it was from the first fruits, which was used to supply seed for future harvests. They did it trusting that God would supply their future needs after they, by faith, gave God the first of the harvest. When they gave of their livestock, they gave the best. These 
were the breeding bulls and cows that would normally be used to resupply their herds. For a rural farmer, this was a genuine sacrifice. It took faith in God that he would bless them if they recognized him first as the supplier of their wealth to give sacrificially.
When they gave a drink offering to God, they gave the first drops from the grapes. This was the best wine from the grapes. It oozed out even before it was pressed. It was considered the most valuable of the harvest. To offer God the most valuable rather than the dregs was an act of faith. It acknowledged how much the family valued their relationship with God. Each type of offering was indeed a faith sacrifice: both in its initial value and its use for generating and sustaining future wealth.
King David would not give to God what didn’t cost him. Araunah (pronounced a ROW nah), wishing to earn favor with King David, offered to donate sacrifices on David’s behalf. David refused his gift saying, “No, I insist on paying you for it. I will not sacrifice to the LORD my god burnt offerings that cost me nothing” (2 Sam 24:24). David purchased not only the oxen for the sacrifice but also the land on which he built an altar for the burnt offerings. This piece of property later became the site of Solomon’s Temple, which remains in Jewish control to this day.
Giving to God is meaningful when it cost us something. Giving that doesn’t cost is giving out of obligation. God is more concerned with the intent or motivation of a sacrifice than its quantity or quality. Charlatans will ask you to inappropriately sacrifice for the Kingdom by giving to their cause–equating their cause with God’s kingdom purposes. But the money that is given usually primarily benefits them and little if any supports God’s mission of redemption. Their indulgent use of resources is an abuse of our love for God. They are trying to use our affections for God against us to rob the Kingdom of valuable resources.
To eliminate religious abuses, we should first give to our local congregation and whenever possible give to other causes through our local church. This adds a level of accountability to those who prey on our desire to sacrifice to the LORD. The Prophet Malachi commanded the people to bring the whole tithe into the storehouse (3:10). The treasure-house of his day was the Temple in Jerusalem, which is equivalent to our church and denomination today. From there the needs of the people were efficiently met.
4) Give to the deserving poor
Throughout the Bible, we find an emphasis on caring for the poor. There’s nothing wrong with being poor (Mt 26:11). From the book of Exodus, which includes laws about caring for and graciously
treating the poor, to the book of Revelation, where it is mentioned that both rich and poor still exist among God’s people, we are to secure the welfare of those in need. The book of Proverbs alone contains 36 references to the poor. There will always be among us people described as financially poor and there will always be opportunities to give to the deserving poor.
The Hebrew word for poor is “Roosh.” It refers to someone destitute, lacking, needy. A “Roosh” is a person unable to sustain themselves. In the New Testament the Greek word is “Ptokhos” and refers to a beggar or pauper, that is, someone dependent on private or government charity for sustenance. There are many reasons why a person becomes destitute. Some of those reasons are self-imposed such as laziness, pride, or loss of capital due to greed. Other reasons include being oppressed, treated unjustly, or out of ignorance being taken advantage of by unscrupulous individuals. Sadly, the majority of individuals living in poverty today are children.
Before the LORD there is no difference between the rich and the poor (Pr 22:2). Yet, Scripture describes God as ever concerned for the poor. “He who oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors God” (Pr 14:31 NIV). He defends and protects them, “Do not exploit the poor because they are poor and do not crush the needy in court, for the LORD will take up their case and will plunder those who plunder them” (Pr 22:22-23 NIV).
Proverbs offers wisdom in the distribution of our wealth to the needy. Giving aid to the poor should not be indiscriminate giving to people who live below the American poverty line. Nor should it be impersonal and done without compassion, kindness, or in showing dignity to the receiver. Christian giving is personal and discriminates between those who deserve help and those who take advantage of welfare resources; and while being concerned for the poor, Christians need to maintain a level of accountability in their giving if they are to make a difference in another’s life through giving.
There are those who are poor and will need aid all their lives; and there are those who, with support and training, can lift themselves out of the cycle of dependence; and then there are those who take advantage of and presume on the kindness of others when they should be spending their efforts caring for themselves and others. A wise Christian has a way of determining who the deserving poor are and when giving accommodates the lifestyle of a con artist.
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